bsdigitalq wrote:Thanks man. Not sure why I couldn't remember it. I know while I was doing those characters last year I had your entire monologue about that scrolling through my head, me thinking "Oh no! I'm a sketchpad character creator now!" But I suppose its alright- aside from some notes here and there, these characters were never really meant to be, well, characters. Just some interesting designs to populate backgrounds. CCA really is all about the main five heroines and their supporting cast.

Yeah, it's not so bad when the characters almost literally just on your sketchpad. It's one thing to design cool costumes (EVERY artist tries that), but quite another to determine that all of those characters need to appear in your comic book, TODAY, en masse as a giant team of guys. The "Image Era" was SO BAD for that- month after month, every book would establish a half-dozen new characters, without having fleshed out the PREVIOUS month's half-dozen! Let the artists go whole-hog, and this happened with every issue!

Not surprised at all. She ticks a number of the boxes I've seen you list before.

I'm noticing that my eye stops almost every time someone's an "off-color". The red chick (Cherry Pie). The black werewolf (who has a REALLY awesome design. It's easy to be distracted by the boobies, but he looks cool). There's a very dark-skinned woman, too (Skadi, who I dearly hope is a Giantess). It's a very eye-catching thing, and makes them stand out, especially in a world where most characters are showing skin.

Thanks man! I do have to say that a lot of your comments that you have attached to your character builds have been pretty influential to me in my character creation, along with what Lee, Kirby, and Ditko were doing with Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four and Robert Kirkman's stuff with Invincible.

Kewl! What kinds of comments were/are generally helpful? I go on about so much, I have a hard time keeping track . Stuff like "This guy sucks, because ____" or "this guy is awesome, because ____", or just stuff about how hot some comic book ladies are?

I do appreciate the silliness. I find it kind of bizarre how comics will insist we take skankalicious characters seriously, or act like we don't know that Gamora is wearing a piece of dental floss as a costume. And while I'm no enemy of Fanservice and find the anti-sexiness crowd annoying, I can empathize with straight girls trying to read superhero comics that actively try to advertise to women readers, but are nonetheless All Cleavage, All The Time. In a universe that plays this deliberately played for laughs, it becomes much more understandable and funny. Plus, it's HONEST about it- all "hey, this comic is about boobs". It reminds me kind of like Power Girl. For years, people complained and writers tried to write around the "Boob Window" in all these serious superhero books. Then the Amanda Conner book came out, and it was like "Y'know what? This is about the boobs" and everyone finally settled down and was like "ah, I get it." Kara & Atlee taking their clothes off and going swimming in day-glo dental-floss bikinis? YUP- GO RIGHT AHEAD.

Other Characters in your thing (I might go back and forth on this, since there's so much to look at. I feel bad for never checking out the non-Roll Call forums at Ronin Army):

* The Tyrannosaurus villain is pretty cool- that's a hard animal to "Anthropomorphize", due to their crazy anatomy. Oddly, it's best to SHRINK the head, despite T-Rexes being famously large-headed.

* I like Phobos & Deimos, and how they actually look like dangerous, crazy-powerful villains in their own right, with wicked "Heavy Metal Album Cover" designs. Most people just turn them into Big Dumb Henchmen--- hell, I'm as guilty as that of ANYONE- my own "Greek-Verse" heroes just have those two as Ares's Dumb Sons, who are basically Wrecking Crew-level guys with superfluous Emotion Control effects.

Jabroniville wrote:Yeah, it's not so bad when the characters almost literally just on your sketchpad. It's one thing to design cool costumes (EVERY artist tries that), but quite another to determine that all of those characters need to appear in your comic book, TODAY, en masse as a giant team of guys. The "Image Era" was SO BAD for that- month after month, every book would establish a half-dozen new characters, without having fleshed out the PREVIOUS month's half-dozen! Let the artists go whole-hog, and this happened with every issue!

And what's worse about it was how Sturgeon's Law took effect and so many of those characters sucked, with only a handful standing out. Hell, out of that Jim Lee era of X-Men, the only characters outside major villains like Sinister, Apocalypse, and Stryfe that really stood out to me were the Nasty Boyz, and even then it was only Gorgeous George (big, long haired purple dude that looks like he's made of goo) and the obligatory animalistic scrapper (who stood out because he was a black dude). A few years back I spent months reading the entirety of the Wildstorm back catalogue from the beginning until its dissolution, and holy hell was it so awful there until the late 90s when Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Joe Casey, and James Robinson started writing the books (hell, Scott Lobdell's work was actually pretty decent!) and they started consolidating things down a bit while introducing their own ideas that actually, y'know, were good.

I'm noticing that my eye stops almost every time someone's an "off-color".

When I did the CCA solo heroines originally, I had around 50 characters, including the Matriarchs. And I was looking at them, and thought "I need more color here." So I brainstormed about 30 additional characters to throw in, and the vast majority of the "off-color" characters like Cherry Pie, Pantera, Purple Haze, and Skadi came from that expansion.

The black werewolf (who has a REALLY awesome design. It's easy to be distracted by the boobies, but he looks cool).

Lycaon's gotten a lot of attention out of TW's rogues gallery- I've even had actual comic book professionals praise him. Makes sense- werewolves are surprisingly rare in superhero comics compared to vampires, and on top of that Lycaon is black, which is rare even among werewolves, who tend to be varying shades of grey.

There's a very dark-skinned woman, too (Skadi, who I dearly hope is a Giantess).

Skadi's roughly Hulk-size, so I think she qualifies. She's basically the biggest heroine of the whole lot outside of the size changers Titanika and Skyscraper (yes Virginia, I have TWO gigantism based heroines in CCA, which is still less than what AC Comics/FemForce has).

Kewl! What kinds of comments were/are generally helpful? I go on about so much, I have a hard time keeping track . Stuff like "This guy sucks, because ____" or "this guy is awesome, because ____", or just stuff about how hot some comic book ladies are?

More or less, yeah. One of the upcoming characters I'll be posting for these last few complete sets was literally based on a throwaway line you made about how a particular character concept was a neat idea. I'll let you try to figure it out after I post them.

I do appreciate the silliness. I find it kind of bizarre how comics will insist we take skankalicious characters seriously, or act like we don't know that Gamora is wearing a piece of dental floss as a costume. And while I'm no enemy of Fanservice and find the anti-sexiness crowd annoying, I can empathize with straight girls trying to read superhero comics that actively try to advertise to women readers, but are nonetheless All Cleavage, All The Time. In a universe that plays this deliberately played for laughs, it becomes much more understandable and funny. Plus, it's HONEST about it- all "hey, this comic is about boobs". It reminds me kind of like Power Girl. For years, people complained and writers tried to write around the "Boob Window" in all these serious superhero books. Then the Amanda Conner book came out, and it was like "Y'know what? This is about the boobs" and everyone finally settled down and was like "ah, I get it." Kara & Atlee taking their clothes off and going swimming in day-glo dental-floss bikinis? YUP- GO RIGHT AHEAD.

Exactly. I feel like honesty and straight-forwardness is the key. I make no illusions that CCA is all about my personal fantasies and fetishes embodied in an otherwise straight forward superhero setting. It bothers me a lot when some artists and writers try to create all sorts of elaborate explanations and excuses for why they stuck an egregiously fanservicey character into a particular work; it strikes me as those creators being ashamed and embarrassed about it (though, given the current environment in entertainment and social media, I'm not surprised). But at the same time there's always a time and a place for that sort of thing, and if you're doing something more straight and serious then maybe it's best to dial it back a bit, unless you do it REALLY well or can balance it a bit with some eye-candy for the ladies. Heck, Herakles? I made him to be a bit of lady and gay eye candy, and he's not the only one. I'm not gay or even really anywhere on that spectrum, but I do appreciate some sexy guys, and wish to see a stronger push for more of them in comics.

This comic sums it up for me:

* The Tyrannosaurus villain is pretty cool- that's a hard animal to "Anthropomorphize", due to their crazy anatomy. Oddly, it's best to SHRINK the head, despite T-Rexes being famously large-headed.

Thanks. I based him on the Arkham Asylum game's take on Killer Croc, with a tail thrown on and no clothes. You don't usually see very many big reptillian dudes in comics outside certain versions of Croc and Abomination.

* I like Phobos & Deimos, and how they actually look like dangerous, crazy-powerful villains in their own right, with wicked "Heavy Metal Album Cover" designs.

Thanks! I'm happy with how they and Keris turned out (Keris being, of course, an original creation, albiet one based on the actual myth of the Keres). Having such badass designs will help legitimize them as the archvillains of the arc I have them as a part of. Hell, I showed them to George Perez a while back at a convention, and he said to me "Damn, I wish you'd been working with us back then."

Most people just turn them into Big Dumb Henchmen--- hell, I'm as guilty as that of ANYONE- my own "Greek-Verse" heroes just have those two as Ares's Dumb Sons, who are basically Wrecking Crew-level guys with superfluous Emotion Control effects.

I think with my take on them, what helps is that they are their own villains, and not merely minions of a villainous Ares. Without having someone like him to answer to, they can be more legit on their own without having to restrain their ability to be effective in order to build up the big bad more. Once a villain is revealed to be working for a bigger bad, I find that that diminishes the initial villain's status, rather than building up the bigger threat as intended.

Vigil Alliance
If Thunder Woman is my flagship, signature solo superhero, then the Vigil Alliance are my main superhero team, and are among my first ever superhero creations. The whole thing started out as me trying to copy the DCAU Justice League cartoons back when they were still on the air in the early 00's. In one story draft I made, I had the eponymous heroes confronting a team of Russian superheroes transported from the Cold War to the (then) present day. As I continued to work on this project I became more enamored with these Russian heroes, and felt they were more unique and interesting than the heroes I had created to be my stars, which were largely carbon copies of a mixture of notable comic book and anime characters. So with the help of a few friends I brainstormed more detailed backstories and origins for the new Vigil Alliance, and since this was years before I discovered FdH I had an artist friend of mine, Trent Maduro (you can see his take on Thunder Woman a couple pages back), do illustrations based on my descriptions. Now, roughly eight years after he did those initial designs, I have become good enough to be able to illustrate the characters myself via FdH, using the initial designs as a basis.

In a nutshell, the story of the Vigil Alliance is that they were once a group of superheroes called the Red Guardians created under the authority of Nikita Khrushchev during the Cold War as a response to the growing number of superheroes in the United States, particularly the government run team call the Patriots, who were largely made up of popular and renowned war heroes. As a result they were initially meant to be more of a propaganda tool than a legitimate fighting force, but over time they actually proved themselves against a variety of threats, culminating in playing a pivitol part in the "Super War." Unfortunately, they vanished without a trace while attempting to apprehend their most notorious enemy, Nashvrag, who was suddenly left powerless and amnesic following the event.

Then, just as they disappeared, so they equally mysterious reappeared almost fifty years later, in the international waters between Russia and the United States, nearly setting off a massive conflict in which both countries attempted to secure the team's allegiance. However, thanks to the efforts of the Russian spy Nightingale and ERA agent Joseph Perez, a full blown world war was averted, and the heroes were allowed to stay in Russia as independent agents. With Nightingale as their new leader they rechristen themselves as the Vigil Alliance, struggling to adjust to the new age even as they confront old and new enemies, and a Russian government intent on subverting, controlling, or destroying them.

Chernorda (Black Horde)
A country girl from Belarus who was kidnapped by the Nazis during Operation Barbarossa, sacrificed as part of a dark ritual by the Thule Society, and resurrected as the undead host for an insectoid eldritch abomination. Very anti-authoritarian and individualistic, often clashing with the more dogmatic and ideological Velikisyn, and disliking the more softspoken Lady Midday.

Koldun (Sorcerer)
A Siberian Yupik and former submarine sailor turned warrior shaman by an encounter with the native animal spirits of ancient Siberia. Earned a role on the Red Guardians by helping them defeat and seal the vampiritic demigod Aponanov. Has taken on the role of mentor and surrogate father figure to Lady Midday, as well as one of the voices of reason during heated debates.

Lady Midday
A young girl from a Ukrainian farming collective who is in turn a human incarnation of an obscure but extremely powerful deity known as Lady Midday, one of the three Zorya who guard the resting place of Simargl the Shadow Hound, a being prophesied to bring about the end of the universe by consuming the Ursa Minor constellation. It was her power that Aponanov was attempting to drain, and the dark entity helped to unlock it. Koldun now helps her to fully realize herself, even as she struggles to maintain her humanity.

Nightingale
An ex-KGB agent recruited into the superpowered spy outfit known as the Special Unit, Nightingale was pivitol in reaching out to the newly returned Red Guardians and finding a way to help stop World War III from breaking out over the emergence of the heroes in international waters. With their former leader dead, he was nominated to become their new one and help them adjust to the present day. Not an easy task when dealing with the likes of Chernorda and Velikisyn.

Stalkhozyain (Steel Master)
The oldest of the group by decades, Stalkhozyain was a super-genius scientist and engineer at least a century of his time, pioneering forms of advanced robotics, metallurgy, energy production, and digital computing. Unfortunately he ran afoul of Trofim Lysenko when Stalin rose to power, and the events very nearly killed him, by he managed to survive by steadily roboticizing himself until all that is left of him is an immortal head in a jar (and even then its unclear if that head is truly alive or not). Stalkhozyain operates and maintains the Vigil Alliance's home base, their flying HQ and vehicles, and an army of drones.

Tugarin
Tugarin was once a very decorated and renowned fighter pilot during the Great Patriotic War (the eastern front of WWII), and as such was one of the poster boys for the Red Guardians, and artificially endowed with plasma and electromagnetism based powers, a process that would end up being used to create future Russian heroes and the villain Nashvrag. Tugarin is the heart of the team, a relaxed, easy going, and funny man who only wishes to enjoy life.

Velikisyn (Great Son)
The Great Son of the Motherland was the progeny of an prominent politburo official who made it his life to groom his son into becoming the epitome of Leon Trotsky's "New Soviet Man". After becoming an extremely renowned soldier he conveniently develops his powers and is immediately made into the star member of the Red Guardians, a living piece of propaganda born of Russia herself fully indoctrinated into the philosophy of Leninism. The sudden shift is scenery has left him the most confused member out of the bunch, further compounded by the discovery that he is actually a clone of the legendary Russian war hero Mikula. He is now wondering about his place in the world, and reevaluating all of the beliefs he has so strongly believed in throughout his life.

Last edited by bsdigitalq on Sun Jul 09, 2017 5:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

bsdigitalq wrote:When I did the CCA solo heroines originally, I had around 50 characters, including the Matriarchs. And I was looking at them, and thought "I need more color here." So I brainstormed about 30 additional characters to throw in, and the vast majority of the "off-color" characters like Cherry Pie, Pantera, Purple Haze, and Skadi came from that expansion.

Hah- nice. I think visually looking at a whole group like that is good- it helps you figure out things that've gone "wrong" at some point, or pick out certain things that are missing. I realized at one point that too many members of my OC team used the "Red & Gold" color scheme, for example.

Lycaon's gotten a lot of attention out of TW's rogues gallery- I've even had actual comic book professionals praise him. Makes sense- werewolves are surprisingly rare in superhero comics compared to vampires, and on top of that Lycaon is black, which is rare even among werewolves, who tend to be varying shades of grey.

Cool! Do you just print out sheets of these images and show people, or use other art pics of them?

Skadi's roughly Hulk-size, so I think she qualifies. She's basically the biggest heroine of the whole lot outside of the size changers Titanika and Skyscraper (yes Virginia, I have TWO gigantism based heroines in CCA, which is still less than what AC Comics/FemForce has).

There can never be enough of those. PS you should commission artists to draw lots and lots of Skadi pictures. Or let me do so .

More or less, yeah. One of the upcoming characters I'll be posting for these last few complete sets was literally based on a throwaway line you made about how a particular character concept was a neat idea. I'll let you try to figure it out after I post them.

Neat! I'll be on the lookout!

Exactly. I feel like honesty and straight-forwardness is the key. I make no illusions that CCA is all about my personal fantasies and fetishes embodied in an otherwise straight forward superhero setting. It bothers me a lot when some artists and writers try to create all sorts of elaborate explanations and excuses for why they stuck an egregiously fanservicey character into a particular work; it strikes me as those creators being ashamed and embarrassed about it (though, given the current environment in entertainment and social media, I'm not surprised). But at the same time there's always a time and a place for that sort of thing, and if you're doing something more straight and serious then maybe it's best to dial it back a bit, unless you do it REALLY well or can balance it a bit with some eye-candy for the ladies. Heck, Herakles? I made him to be a bit of lady and gay eye candy, and he's not the only one. I'm not gay or even really anywhere on that spectrum, but I do appreciate some sexy guys, and wish to see a stronger push for more of them in comics.

Heh- Herk does kind of look like the dudes who populate Gay Webcomics & Comic Strips- all super-huge, muscular guys with broad shoulders and square jaws.

Thanks! I'm happy with how they and Keris turned out (Keris being, of course, an original creation, albiet one based on the actual myth of the Keres). Having such badass designs will help legitimize them as the archvillains of the arc I have them as a part of. Hell, I showed them to George Perez a while back at a convention, and he said to me "Damn, I wish you'd been working with us back then."

0_0 How is that NOT your perma-sig quote? That's WAY better than any of my stories about Chris Claremont not letting me leave his table until he'd talked for like five minutes about his X-Men & New Mutants runs, and any of the lines and "odd looks" he used.

And yeah, Keris looks really awesome, too. I was thinking she was some kind of mix of Eris and somebody, as I kind of lose track of all of the "Minor War Gods" populating Ares's family tree. I'm as big a Greek Myth Nut as anybody, and even *I* forget some of the ones like the Keres (who, true to Greek Myth, kind of duplicate concepts a lot; they populate the same general theme as the Furies and the Harpies- the Greeks liked their Flying Psycho Ladies).

I think with my take on them, what helps is that they are their own villains, and not merely minions of a villainous Ares. Without having someone like him to answer to, they can be more legit on their own without having to restrain their ability to be effective in order to build up the big bad more. Once a villain is revealed to be working for a bigger bad, I find that that diminishes the initial villain's status, rather than building up the bigger threat as intended.

Yeah, I can see that. They're usually just Mooks in the myths, but advancing a character like that to a much bigger threat really ramps up the difficulties faced by the hero.

Jabroniville wrote:Cool! Do you just print out sheets of these images and show people, or use other art pics of them?

I used to use printouts, but now I just put everything on my iPad.

PS you should commission artists to draw lots and lots of Skadi pictures. Or let me do so .

Unfortunately I'm in between jobs and low on funds right now, so that'll have to wait. But you're free to do so if you want right now. No need to twist my arm.

0_0 How is that NOT your perma-sig quote? That's WAY better than any of my stories about Chris Claremont not letting me leave his table until he'd talked for like five minutes about his X-Men & New Mutants runs, and any of the lines and "odd looks" he used.

I'm not really big on boasting about my accomplishments or tooting my own horn- possibly a consequence of my extreme dislike of advertising and the public persona of Stan Lee (his stuff may have been hugely influential on me, but I personally can't stand the character he puts on). I think you might be the first guy I've ever told that little anecdote to, actually.

And yeah, Keris looks really awesome, too. I was thinking she was some kind of mix of Eris and somebody, as I kind of lose track of all of the "Minor War Gods" populating Ares's family tree. I'm as big a Greek Myth Nut as anybody, and even *I* forget some of the ones like the Keres (who, true to Greek Myth, kind of duplicate concepts a lot; they populate the same general theme as the Furies and the Harpies- the Greeks liked their Flying Psycho Ladies).

Funny enough, originally the spot that Keris is in was occupied *by* Eris, but when I came up with the idea of the Heratheon I gave Eris an upgrade and came up with the idea of Keris to replace her.

bsdigitalq wrote:I'm not really big on boasting about my accomplishments or tooting my own horn- possibly a consequence of my extreme dislike of advertising and the public persona of Stan Lee (his stuff may have been hugely influential on me, but I personally can't stand the character he puts on). I think you might be the first guy I've ever told that little anecdote to, actually.

That's cool- and yeah, Stan's public persona is pretty humorous in terms of being over-the-top, but can be grating. But at a Comic Expo (using another example of a comics pro I met at a Con), Bob Layton had the following exchange with a fan:

Fan: "I once went up to Stan, and said 'Stan, you're the greatest!' He said, 'I agree!'"
Bob: "YEAHHH... if you were hoping for a guy to be one of those humble creators, you'd be disappointed in meeting him."

I shared an anecdote I'd heard from "Randy Something Positive" Milholland, who was at a signing where a fan asked him how it felt to write a comic as bad as the debut of She-Hulk. Stan simply replied "I'm my own biggest fan- you gotta be". Bob pretty much agreed... but yeah, Stan exaggerates it in public, but he'll grab any credit you give him. It's part of what his artistic partners hated, and part of what's given him a bad rep with some comic fans (particularly those in the "All Kirby" and "All Ditko" camps.

The Krasyne Opeka (Red Guardians)
The former incarnation of the Vigil Alliance, one of the most notable superhero teams of their era, rivals to the Patriots and the Allegiance, but actually not really intended to be an effective fighting force; the bulk of the actual superhero battling was done by a less prominent team, the Doblestnyy Vityaz (Valorous Knights), operated by rival political interests in the Soviet Union. When the Red Guardians vanished, it was up to the Knights to fill in for them, and the resentment and feeling of inadequacy they felt toward the more famous and popular Guardians reached a boiling point during the fall of the Eastern Bloc, when members of the Vityaz attacked Germans tearing down the Berlin Wall and then later clashed with members of the Patriots in a truly horrific battle. These events, along with the participation of Vityaz members in the brief civil war that engulfed Moscow following the fall of the USSR, helped to instigate the passing of a large number of treaties and resolutions heavily restricting the international activity and usage of extraordinaries, the outright banning of extraordinaries as military conscripts and arms, and a global ban on the creation and marketing of artificial extraordinaries.

Chernorda
Note: Her natural hair color is white. She dyes her hair, and in the modern days chooses a much wilder and more colorful hairstyle over the more conservative look she had as a Red Guardian. The only reason she is allowed to have bare legs is because of the nature of her powers.

Koldun

Lady Midday

Stalkhozyain

Tugarin

Velikisyn

Volkomvoi (Wolf Cry)
Team leader. Also a zampolit, a political officer who made sure the heroes stayed in-line with party ideology. Near fanatical loyalty to the Party, but very restrained on the surface. Kept the team in line with a mixture of natural charisma, smarts, and an iron will, but was still very much their friend. Had the ability to drain life-force from a living being, weakening them while augmenting his strength and toughness, also gaining flight, energy blasts, and weakened aspects of absorbed abilities. Somehow he died between the team's disappearance and reappearance.

Last edited by bsdigitalq on Sun Jul 09, 2017 6:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

Jabroniville wrote:That's cool- and yeah, Stan's public persona is pretty humorous in terms of being over-the-top, but can be grating. But at a Comic Expo (using another example of a comics pro I met at a Con), Bob Layton had the following exchange with a fan:

Fan: "I once went up to Stan, and said 'Stan, you're the greatest!' He said, 'I agree!'"
Bob: "YEAHHH... if you were hoping for a guy to be one of those humble creators, you'd be disappointed in meeting him."

I shared an anecdote I'd heard from "Randy Something Positive" Milholland, who was at a signing where a fan asked him how it felt to write a comic as bad as the debut of She-Hulk. Stan simply replied "I'm my own biggest fan- you gotta be". Bob pretty much agreed... but yeah, Stan exaggerates it in public, but he'll grab any credit you give him. It's part of what his artistic partners hated, and part of what's given him a bad rep with some comic fans (particularly those in the "All Kirby" and "All Ditko" camps.

Yeah, which is why I clarify that I dislike his persona and actions, rather than the man himself. And really, it's more just how extreme and over-the-top he is with it than anything else- I don't begrudge a creator being his own biggest fan. Hell, I think more should be that way, though not me- it's just not in my nature to be that way.

Neat- I'm interested in the Valorous Knights now. And larger backstories for some of the Mega-Villains and major characters. How much of their backstories is written down, and how much is just in your head?

Unfortunately, for the most part they are current fairly minor characters in my head, with only a few having any sort of importance (Metyeor's rivalry with Velikisyn, Charodeyka's partnership with Koldun, and Prorochitsa's romance with Velikisyn and premonition of what's going to happen to the Red Guardians). However, that will likely change as I continue to flesh things out.

And larger backstories for some of the Mega-Villains and major characters. How much of their backstories is written down, and how much is just in your head?

Eh, something like 60/40. IThere's still a number of groups and characters that need work, but I'm pushing forward. The settings thread for the Extraordinary Mythos is gonna be nuts.

Federalnyy Stazha (Federal Guard)
The wake of the collapse of the USSR caused a huge shakeup in its military and intelligence infrastructure, a mixture of opportunists seizing the chance to enact schemes against enemies and the newly formed government switching things up to stop such internal strife. The Valorous Knights, who had dutifully served as the Soviet Union's vanguard of extraordinaries following the disappearance of the Red Guardians, had all but dissolved, most of its members either dead, incapacitated, or incarcerated. The few remaining survivors quit and formed their own group, the Bogatyri, independent of government oversight.

The Federal Guard was formed to fill in the void left, as much as symbol that Russia was not dead than anything else. However, as a result of the newly enacted treaties and resolutions heavily restricting the employment of extraordinaries, the Federal Guard is not a military force like the Valorous Knights or Red Guardians, but is instead an internal national security and law enforcement group. They are not superheroes, and serve the whims of the Russian government, often times putting them at odds with the Bogatyri and the newly resurgent Vigil Alliance.

Kamengorsk (Stone Mountain)
The oldest serving member, Kamengorsk is actually the last surviving member of the "People's Patriots," a group of extraordinary war heroes from the Great Patriotic War, almost all of whom were betrayed and killed on Stalin's orders toward the end. "Vulkan", as he was known, survived by traveling into Siberia to hunt the Strashnyysver, which he did for several decades until the duo of Spektr and Zimasyn tracked him down and helped him bring in the beast. He is not a member of the Guard by choice, despite more than earning a veteran's retirement.

Molniya (Lightning)
A young and impressionable soldier and one of the willing volunteers for a reconstruction of the device that gave Tugarin and Nashvrag their powers. The result has turned her into a human lightning bolt, forcing her to wear special insulating gloves so she doesn't shock anything she touches.

Neuslav (shortened form of Neuviadaemaya Slava, "Immortal Glory")
A sick and twisted deviant from a wealthy family who used his psychic powers to get whatever he wanted. His service in the Federal Guard is a life sentence for all the crimes he has committed, and he wears gear that suppresses his psionic abilities all the time, requiring authorization from a superior for any use at all.

Prizrak (Ghost)
The final volunteer for the empowerment device that created several members of the Guard. When she went in to use it the machine malfunctioned, destroying the building it was in and seemingly killing her. But instead it turned her into a kind of quantum ghost that can freely move herself and other things through space and time.

Shturmovik (Stormtrooper)
An air force officer bound to a shapeshifting suit of biomechanical armor created from technology reverse engineered from the alien race that invaded earth during the Super War.

Spektr (Spectrum)
The most mysterious member of the bunch, very rarely speaking or exerting much effort. Ostensibly some sort of scientist, but appears to be a sort of "enforcer" for the Federal Guard's superiors, as Zimasyn and Kamengorsk are both quite nervous when in his presence. Apparently he helped them defeat Strashnyysver.

Strashnyysver (Terrible Beast)
A mutant monstrosity created by the mad scientist Ilya Ivanov during the Great Patriotic War as a kind of ultimate weapon against the Germans, it instead escaped and began rampaging across Russia, inadvertently drawing Vulkan/Kamengorsk into a decades long chase until Zimasyn and Spektr helped to subdue and capture it. Is easily one of the strongest and toughest beings on Earth in the setting.

Voskhod (Sunrise)
The senior field officer of the Federal Guard, also empowered by the same process as Molniya, Prizrak and Zarya. Notable in that he used to be a friend of Nightingale during their time in the Russian army, and now is often forced to be pitted against his former comrade by his superiors.

Zarya (Morningstar)
Voskhod's second-in-command, and one of the members the Federal Guard's superiors like to trot out as "eye candy" for young Russian boys, much to her chagrin. Doubly so because she's their second choice for that, as they would prefer to have Zharova play this role, but the heroine is much too valuable as a "serious" flagship for her to be used as fanservice.

Zenit (Zenith)
An ex-mercenary who was exposed to a bio-mutagen during a raid of an old Soviet bioweapons facility that turned him into a psuedo-vampire. Not much use in the daytime, but great for infiltration and more sneaky activities than the members of the Federal Guard are typically capable of.

Zharova (Fire's Daughter)
A Spetznaz soldier caught behind enemy lines during a training exercise when Koschei the Deathless made a second attempt to invade. When trapped in Koschei's palace she encountered the trapped spirit of the Firebird, and made a bargain to become the entity's vessel to help them both escape. Her single-handed defeat of Koschei has made her one of the most famous and popular Russian heroes in the modern day, and though she is not the leader, she is definitely the flagship member of the group.

Zimasyn (Winter Son)
Another former elite soldier, Zimasyn is the only surviving member of a group that vanished during training exercises in Siberia. He returned a superhuman powerhouse with an affinity for winter and a major bone to pick with modern Russian culture, advocating an abandonment of modern technology and a return to the old ways of serving the ancient and powerful forces lurking in the Rodina. Apparently Spektr showed him the error of his ways and forced him to join the Federal Guard.

Last edited by bsdigitalq on Sun Jul 09, 2017 6:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

The Sovereignty
Moving away from Russia to more of the greater Extraordinary Mythos.

The Sovereignty are not a team of heroes. Some of the membership consists of notable figures in the hero community, but by and large that is not their purpose. Their mission is to, simply put, create a better world, by removing the forces that subvert or stall progress and advancing or empowering individuals and organizations capable of making positive change happen, while protecting said people and groups from those who would seek to stop them. The Sovereignty are not about making this change happen themselves or being a direct, obvious higher authority. August Star made that mistake, and it took him down a very dark path. Instead, they work in the shadows as more of a guiding force to inspire and protect the people who can truly make a difference. But it's only a matter of time until they have to publicly reveal themselves...

Naturally, they have made a lot of enemies, and none more fearsome than the enigmatic Amelia Rostek and her masters at Transversal Inc.

The Elemental
A former human slain by militants and turned extremely powerful and wild elemental being from south-central Africa, the Elemental is the wrath of Mother Nature personified. With guidance from Professor Moebius and Moksha, she is gradually returning to some semblance of humanity.

Excelsior
The figurehead of the Sovereignty in the West. Is in actuality a young man who is able to assume an adult, superpowered form. Eternally optimistic and hopeful, he is considered to be the true successor to the legacy of Captain Meteor, especially after the failure of August Star to live up to expectations.

The Fountainhead
The masked persona of Prince Tasnim al-Barr that he takes on whenever on Sovereignty business. A non-fighter, his role is effectively that of being the Sovereignity's representative in the business and political worlds, and leveraging his vast array of contacts and financial/political power to get things done.

Halcyon Sword
Hailing from a hidden and ancient civilization, Halcyon Sword has come into the rest of the world on a mission to bring the rest of humanity onto the path her home took centuries ago. She is both ambassador and warrior, genuinely believing that there is real evil in the world that can only be dealt with at the edge of a blade.

Moksha
A bodhisattva from India, Moksha has chosen to remain on Earth in order to spread his knowledge of the secrets of the universe. He is a spiritual center for the group, and its representative to the people of the rest of the world, especially the third-world nations.

Professor Moebius
Moebius is a fallen Overseer, a race of primordial extradimensional beings that have made themselves the taskmasters of reality. Stripped of all magical and cosmic power for defying the noninterference edicts the Overseers enforce upon themselves, he has wandered the Earth for millennia. His current form is based upon a persona he took up as an adventurer-scientist. He is the primary leader of the Sovereignty.

Raincloud
One of the recruits for the Sovereignty's more public persona, Raincloud is a Native-American weather controller with an interest global social change and justice. A justice that includes righting the wrongs European colonials inflicted upon her tribe.

Svetlana Mir
An example of the superpowered spy games of the Cold War, Svetlana Mir is one of the few surviving members of the KGB's superspy program who survived the bloody infighting that followed the fall of the USSR. A decidedly pragmatic and non-heroic person, as per her Russian heritage; just the way she likes it.

Visionary
A devout Buddhist and supergenius scientist/engineer from Singapore who has chosen to pursue a form of enlightenment through technology. She has investigated ways of bettering the body through genetic and cybernetic enhancement, and wishes to share her vision of the future to the rest of the world.

Vox Populi
The Voice of the People is a woman with a spiritual connection to the rest of the world, that she channels through her vocal chords to both destroy and heal.

Last edited by bsdigitalq on Sun Jul 09, 2017 6:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

And that's all of my complete sets. I do have a bunch of complete characters scattered throughout my lists, but no sets or teams fully done. Hopefully I'll be able to get more done in the future.

In the meantime, let's get going on something I've been threatening for a very long time: requests!

So, for the next day and a half, I am opening up my services to requests from you all. If you want a nice little image of your characters for a game here to accompany the stat sheets, you've come to the right place! A few rules are:

1) Only one character request per user.
2) Only active members of this community can make requests.
3) I will only take requests to do characters. FdH is a character design software. While it could be possible to do a limited type of scene with it, such a task is beyond my abilities. So keep it strictly to characters.
4) Try to keep it to human or humanoid characters. While more monstrous and inhuman characters are possible, its generally easier just to do the usual two arms, two legs, and head on torso thing.
5) If you want me to design or a character, please be absolutely and extremely detailed in what you want in the character. The more descriptive, the better. Reference images of elements you want are doubly helpful. Alternatively, I don't mind requests for just taking a pre-existing character reference and simply translating it to FdH, but be warned I reserve the right to makes tweaks.
6) Requests for characters in games on this site will be given priority over other requests.
7) Redesigns will be given priority over other requests *except* for the above.
8) First come, first serve unless the request fits into 6 or 7.
9) I reserve the right to add additional rules or make adjustments here if I forgot something.

I will be opening five slots. PM me your request and any questions. The requests will be open until late tomorrow evening, or until all five slots are filled. If the latter happens, I will post an announcement here along with a list of the requests. Individual requests will be PMed to the requester, and once all are done they will be posted as a set here. Hopefully this exercise will get me back into the spirit of using FdH and as a result I will make more progress on all the characters I plan to make using it.

* I'll include some questions about the characters, though obviously as you said, they're mostly just "Sketchpad Characters". I find them curious, however, and want to know more about them, as soon as you come up with stuff. I find that "asking questions" is rather handy in explaining some kinds of characters- in my own Universe, I kind of went "Okay, now how does this person get powers?" or somesuch thing, and their personality, history and nature kind of "unfolds" from there. Hopefully I can help the development of some of these nice, over-developed vixens . Hopefully this helps you come up with stuff, though of course you don't have to answer anything!

I'm liking Aquamarina and her "beach-themed team". Do they only fight beach-themed enemies, or are they stuck in Another Comic Book Atlantis ? I'd also like to see Cherry Pie's backstory- like, why is she red?

Boudica

Brickhouse

These two are both rad, even if Brickhouse is wearing a totally 1970s "Luke Cage" get-up. The colors are interesting. Is Boudica from an alternate universe, the past, or is she just a modern-woman who dresses to impress?

Galatea is probably my favorite design of this batch, though. Distinctive skin-color, and the stark white/black contrast is extremely visually-appealing. A very nice-looking character. Plus tall, chesty and well-built- gotta love it . I'm wondering how she reacts to the Wizard "using" her (ew). Is she a willing participant? An automaton with no personality? A snarky henchwoman who only barely follows orders, and openly refuses the Wizard's advances?

Jabroniville wrote:I'm liking Aquamarina and her "beach-themed team". Do they only fight beach-themed enemies, or are they stuck in Another Comic Book Atlantis ?

They basically fight oceanic threats in general. There's a few in the villains list- Kadron the Ocean King is basically a slightly more inhuman-looking Namor, Devilfish is like a cross between Doc Ock and Black Manta, and then there's the monstrous duo of Scylla and Charybdis. There *is* a kind of underwater Atlantis like city that both Kadron and Mermaiden come from, but I have no real intention of developing that. Atlantis and lost/underwater mythical cities are soooooooo overplayed in fiction they've basically lost any sense of mystery and wonder to them.

I'd also like to see Cherry Pie's backstory- like, why is she red?

Maybe she got caught by her daddy swinging with a dude in the back of his car? I honestly don't know. I've never really thought about Cherry Pie and her backstory.

Is Boudica from an alternate universe, the past, or is she just a modern-woman who dresses to impress?

The past, but a very Conan the Barbarian-esque era. She's a contemporary of Zarja, but unlike that predecessor of Majesty, Boudica got put into some sort of ageless sleep spell and locked in a sarcophagus until researchers at the Capital City Museum of Natural History opened it up and woke her up.

I'm wondering how she reacts to the Wizard "using" her (ew). Is she a willing participant? An automaton with no personality? A snarky henchwoman who only barely follows orders, and openly refuses the Wizard's advances?

A mixture of "no choice" due to the wizard having some form of control over her, and ignorance leading to naivete (i.e., she did not completely understand what was going on, and any understanding she did develop was a mixture of her natural learning progression and some inherent knowledge implanted into her by the wizard). The wizard is long since dead and the means to control her seemingly lost.